


Loose

by weisswinds



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, pre-release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-14 20:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19280455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisswinds/pseuds/weisswinds
Summary: Post timeskip.Bernadetta finds herself pensive on the battlefield.





	1. Flash

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write pre-release fic but I couldnt shake this idea. Bernadetta has captured my heart. Thankfully I won't have to deny myself her or Edelgard. Black Eagles forever, long live Adrestia. 
> 
> POST RELEASE EDIT  
> shout out to me for getting Bernie's crest effect EXACTLY right.

It was all she had to do. Loose an arrow. Nock another. Loose an arrow. Nock. Loose. Nock. Loose. 

Her eyes had always been sharp. She could see clearly from her obscured sniper's nest when she found her marks. She didn't miss often. 

Blue. Gold. Blue. Blue. Blue. Gold. Gold. Blue. Gold.

She was free to fire at will, hidden from sight by Hubert's keen magic. From the pockmarked cliff face overlooking the chaotic battlefield, Bernadetta fell into a rhythm of blue and gold. She let her mind wander to days long gone. 

 

_"You promise?" Bernadetta said through the narrow opening her father's hand held in the door to her room._

_"All you have to do is shoot. They are here to accept officers to the academy. Do your best to impress them."_

_"You didn't promise yet..." she mumbled._

_A sigh from beyond the door, "Yes, Bernadetta. I promise you won't be forced. It's your decision."_

_In what felt like an instant, Bernadetta found herself standing in the archery range, bow in hand and a vile pit growing in her stomach. There were so many watching, so many strangers. So many with expectations, with doubts, with judgment in their eyes._ Seiros let me miss. Seiros let me miss. Seiros let me‐

_Bullseye. Ah. Now she'd done it alright. An impressed murmur passed through the crowd. Well, she'd come this far. Her next arrow split the first, the third driving home in the same fashion. They were impressed, that much was clear from the applause and cheers._

_It all felt so far away now. At least it was over with. She set her bow down. No sooner had she turned than a recruiter appeared before her, shaking her hands. They said something she didn't hear. And another._

_Another. Another. Another. Another. Another. Far too many, too many by far. She searched desperately for her father's face in the clamoring crowd, to no avail. Desperate times called for a desperate measure. She was hardly faking this time, anyway._

_Bernadetta collapsed, falling to her side. It looked worse than it was, she was a well practiced faker after all. Distressed moaning, curling into a ball, clutching her stomach. Check, check, and check. They immediately made room, enough to breathe at least. A single eye slyly cracked open saw her father shove his way through the crowd to scoop her up._

_When they were free from prying eyes she shifted in his arms to give him the closest approximation of a hug she could manage._

_"How'd I do?"_

_"An officer should faint less but you certainly did impress them. Will you go?"_

_"I'll think about it."_

 

Bernadetta was shaken out of her reverie by the sound of Hubert's magic tearing apart whomever had snuck their way into the cave network. She simply nodded at his glance and followed through the arcane portal he snapped into existence. 

Onto the next nest. The same pattern. Blue. Gold. Gold. Blue. Blue. 

All she had to do was shoot. 


	2. Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle continues. Bernadetta gets curious. Hubert says some words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't at all plan to write more of this but whoops inspiration struck! I took some liberties with canon and some of my own possible ideas, hope they go over alright!

Mage and archer continued their operation. This battle was always Adrestia's to win, the field chosen well in advance and tactfully pushed towards. The cliffs overlooking the rocky plain housed a complex cave network. Bernadetta did her work from the dozens of sniper nests connected by Hubert's portals. All she needed to do was shoot.

  _"There is no other I can entrust this to, Bernadetta my friend. Fight well."_

 That's what Edelgard had told her. Bernadetta's slacker days were long behind her: she had a responsibility to carry out and a dear friend believing in her to do so. Goddess damn her if she would betray that trust now.

 The battle raged on below. It was a constant push and pull between the three sides. Gold. Blue. Glorious red. A broken line, a retreat, a regrouping. A charge, a feint, a ruse, a trap. Bernadetta absorbed it all in her periphery, aim unaffected by the constantly changing information.

 Blue. Gold. Gold. Blue.

 Hubert watched the nest's only entrance a short distance behind her, arcane tome primed to loose his magic at a moment's notice. He glanced at a glowing red rune on the inside of his wrist. Nearly time.

 "To the last location," he said, terse but not unkind. It was simply his way.

 Magic danced about his fingertips, a flick of his wrist opening the portal on the ground. Bernadetta's "Mm." of acknowledgment preceded her last arrow before she stepped backwards to drop into the portal.

 The last nest was more well stocked than the others, where Bernadetta was meant to hole up until the battle was over. It wasn't likely she would need the dozen or so barrels of arrows or the extra bows, but Adrestia was hardly an empire founded on half-baked preparation. The path to its entrance was complex and treacherous before it had been thoroughly trapped.

 She took her position and began to fire. Hubert glanced again at the rune on his wrist.

 "I will go prepare the way for Her Imperial Majesty. Fight well."

 A miss.

 "Hang on a sec. You've got a couple minutes, right?"

 Blue.

 Hubert did a rapid mental calculation before answering, "Yes. Quickly, what is it?"

 "Out of all of us, you're the closest to Edelgard. Why don't you ever call her by name? She's fine with it."

 "I address her as is proper, that is all."

 A miss. Bernadetta nocked her next arrow with an annoyed touch. He always was a bad liar. Took a good one to know.

 "Don't buy it."

 She didn't need to look to see the creases in his forehead, the frown deepening not in displeasure but in thought. Hubert laughed once, a chuckle that might have seemed mirthless. From him it may as well have been a bellylaugh.

 "That easy to see through, huh? You always were sharper than you let on."

 "Thanks?"

 "I'll speak candidly then. Naturally this is in confidence. I trust you as she does," Hubert's tone softened as he spoke, even further as he continued. "Her Imperial Majesty, Edelgard von Hraesvelgr is the most powerful of us all. An unyielding will that no steel could hope to match. It is a mask she wears with a heavy heart, one that becomes more her with each passing day. When it is just the two of us she allows it to slip, ever so slightly. This is when I call her Edelgard. To remind her that _that_ is who she truly is. She allows you, Caspar, and the others to call her simply Edelgard so she doesn't forget her heart when she cannot let the mask slip."

 Bernadetta listened closely, her firing pace slowing as she did.

 "Thank you for telling me. That's just like you two."

 "I certainly do hope so," Hubert said with a tinge of joyful pride. "I must be going now. You know what to do. Fight well."

 "And you," Bernadetta raised a hand, bidding him farewell as he vanished through another portal.

 She didn't have to wait long for Edelgard's majestic arrival. There was a tingling sense a Crestbearer would feel as another was invoked nearby. The stronger the Crest, the stronger the sensation. There was no buildup, no indication of where she might have struck beforehand. In an arcane flash, Edelgard was just _there_. Her Crest gave her the strength to shatter the lines of blue and gold alike. A beautiful crimson aura pierced the clouds, flaring in whatever direction she turned her attacks. Had she been anywhere near while activating her Crest measures could have been taken to minimize the carnage. Teleported into their midst with her elite guard, however, there was little either force could do to stop her.

 Bernadetta felt her Crest pulse in her hand, glowing under the glove. Edelgard's didn't just call out to her, it was screaming, pounding against hers. Bernadetta's will was always her own, and now to join hers with Edelgard's with the invocation of her Crest was all the joy she could ask for. She would never wade headlong into enemy lines. Bernadetta's strength lay elsewhere. Her arrows were imbued with the silvery purple aura that now spiralled from her hand. Each found its mark with devastating effect, flying faster and faster with each shot. She lost herself in the storm of arrows, carrying out Edelgard's entrusted mission.

 The battle didn't last long after that. Without any major Crestbearers of their own, both blue and gold fled or were broken.

  _"Show them your power."_

 That was the last thing Edelgard had told her. It would be easy. All she had to do was shoot, after all.


End file.
